Remember.
No matter what you do, you'll be surrounded by darkness.

What would you have done, if you were in my place? A dark cloud had sourrounded us and, as it seems, the end was close. There wouldn't have been any way out or escape this time. Nothing that could have saved the situation.
Only darkness.

Chapter 1. Birth and collapse.

It was a normal day. A really nice day. Not even a cloud in the sky and the sun was shining, as never before. I looked outside the window, lost in my thoughts.

I was wondering what I would have done later, tomorrow, the day after and so on.
Another day at school had passed and I stretched when I heard the bell ringing. Other than that, I had heard also another noise. It was Andrea's head, beating on the desk.
I had heard the same noise soon after, so I turned around and saw it was Enrico's head this time. I was thinking something like "Weird, that's how I usually am when I'm at school, after some tough hours of lesson..."
I kept that for myself and just chuckled thinking about it. I had realized that all of our classmates were already out of class and we were the only ones in the room.
"Uhh, guys, shall we go...?" I said, looking around.
"No.. let's wait for Ste... he said he would have passed by..." Andre answered to me, with a voice that seemed to come from "the world of the deads".
"Ah, ok ok..." I answered shaking my head and smiling softly.

The island where we lived was considered beatiful by everyone. A little tiny paradise, where everyone could live in peace. Useless to say, I never considered it that way. I would have wanted to see what's outside, what the entire world had to offer, hoping to not end up dissapointed eventually.
"I'm dead tired..." Enry complained.
I was tired too, but that day I was lively enough to not faint for once. Soon after, Ste had arrived, he said hello and came close to our desks.
"Hey, what happened...?" he asked, noticing I was the only one not knocked out.
"Heh, nothing..." I answered him. "We're just kinda... deeeead tired..." I had stretched again.
"Oh... so, everything's normal." he looked around.
We all went out of the class, starting to chat and laugh, as usual. These were my closest friends.
We had known each others for years and when we got enough time, we would go out and talk about everything in this world. They were the people I got along the most.
I was a normal guy, who had lived all of his life on that island. There was absolutely nothing special about me, or about what was around me. I had a normal physique, two normal but big brown eyes and long brown spiked hair, close to blonde. I had the bad habit of having mood swings... and to get depressed pretty easily.

"Gee, I can't believe we're out... "
Enry, was the least serious of the group. It wasn't a defect to us though, all the opposite. In case of need, he could have been the most optimist in our group and make the hardest things become easy. Just, he's usually a little too much care-free and can't really focus on serious talks.
He could have also looked weak... but believe me. He wasn't, despite what his physique looked like. He had long black hair, and two normal dark brown eyes.

"Yeah, well.. we are! Finally...! I couldn't take it anymore..."
Andrea was "the artist" in our group, I guess... He would always draw, whenever he had a piece of paper and a pencil. He'd always ask us to review all of his drawings and ask us advice, even though in the end he'd just do what he wants. He was definetely the shortest in our group, with normal brown eyes and hair and probabily the fastest one too.

"Let's go then... I'm hungry... and thirsty too, I might faint."
Ste was his big brother, mainly focused on videogames and whatever thing related to them. His black hair used to cover part of his brown eyes. He used to complain about the new videogames and often say that the good, old videogames were way better than the actual ones (And I always kinda agreed to some extent). He also was the oldest in our group, while I was just a little younger than him and older than Enry and Andre.
That day, we had decided to go to the commercial center, the closest to our school, to eat something togheter. How couldn't we have hang out on a nice day like that? Though, if we were aware of what was going to happen, we wouldn't have been so cheerful and free-minded. Probabily, we would have been scared...

We were walking and talking about the usual topics. We used to talk about fantasy characters, videogames and about life in general, the things teen-agers usually talk about.
We had arrived at the main entrance of the commercial center and we entered togheter.
"Let's see what's new!" Enry said pointing at the videogames shop. I guess our group was really addicted to videogames.
We followed him immediately and after our usual talks (like "Oh my god, that's horrible...!" or "No, it's a good game!" but also "Damn, I'm broke!" "*...the good, old games are gone forever...") we had managed to get out of that shop, safe and sound.
Inside the shop, we had found a pack of little key-holders. They had the shape of the main characters of our "once favorite" videogame. We each bought one, and I had chose the Sora shaped one. Enry got Goofy, Andre got donald, while Ste got Riku. Looking at the little Sora, I had a deep nostalgic feeling and I thought about all the moments togheter with my friends.
Once outside...

"And now...?" Andre asked.
"...mhhh... food!" Enry answered screaming, looking particularly hungry.
We all agreed and decided to go to the fast food on the upper floor. Then we headed towards the stairs in order to get there.
"This table is empty!"I said.
"Ok, then... who shall go to take everyone's orders?" Andre asked.
"Alright, I'll go this time." Enry answered.
"I'll help you." Ste decided to follow him.
We got our money out of our pockets and decided.
After that, Enry and Ste headed towards the bar...
...then, we all heard a noise. That noise right now keeps repeating itself inside my head. It's like something that kept shattering into pieces. A noise that sounded like some glass got shattered... Me and Andre turned around to see what was going on.
That display isn't so easy to describe...
A table got thrown against other three tables, and one of those got through the glass at the entrance of the shop. People started screaming, while some people didn't move, paralized and scared to death, with a blank face.
An old man threw away three seats, almost slipping on the floor, trying to escape. He didn't make it.
That being jumped on his back and stabbed him with what seemed to be a sharp claw. Behind him, other three beings were throwing away every single thing they found on their way and attacked the workers behind the bar.
We were part of the people who didn't move, since we were shocked. Neither of us tried to escape, it probabily would have been no use, as the beings seemed to notice any movement caused by the fear, and eliminated every single person that tried to get away.
"W-what the...!" someone said. I can't remember who excatly was, everything happened so fast... and the fear was just too much to handle.
"W-what are they?"
"We have to...!"
A creature turned around fast, and the others, who seemed to be under its comand, did the same movement.
Those circled and yellow eyes met mine, I was sure of that. A chill crossed my spine... and I think the others felt the same way.
The creature moved wildly its body and its arm turned into a claw. After that, it looked up and its body trembled, showing some strange spasms. They wanted us. That time, we still didn't know anything, and certainly we couldn't have imagined it.
The creatures jumped on us and we couldn't do anything.
"Manu!" somebody screamed.
"No!" two people screamed in the same way. I remember we had tried to hit one of those beings.
Then again, I can't remember every detail, as the fear was just too much. It had been like a bad dream. How can you remember well the details of a nightmare? You can't do that, considering the fact that the mind prefers to not remember... Anyway, in that moment... I had started losing counscieness, I think. I was slightly suspended in the air.
I don't remember how, excatly. Probabily, kept suspended by the claw of that creature. I had started hearing the screams slightly suffocated.
That's when... the floor started to fade away. A powerful light started coming out from the holes.
Everything around us started to break. And to... open, literally.

The walls of the commercial center started to fade away as well and become dust. The light coming from the floor became dazzling, until everything dissapeared and only the absoulute white remained.
White... then, black. I had definetely lost counscieness.I couldn't hear anything. I didn't hear any screams, or feel the pain that claw had caused to me.
My friends's voices had faded away. I had tried to scream, but no sound came out of my mouth. I couldn't even see my body. So, I had decided to let myself go into that absolute nothing.